St. Paul & the Broken Bones

One Liner: That other long ass band name doing kick ass soul revival rock

Poster Position: 9

Thoughts:  After Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats, and the James Hunter Six, adding in these cats as well shows that the ACL folks are fully committed to the retro-soul movement.  Or at least they believe they'll get ticket sales if they offer these guys up.  I dunno, but if you are a fan of that old school soul rock party sound, then these guys will tickle your fancy as well.  The lead singer, Paul Janeway, cranks up the James Brown power vocals some of the time, but then serves up slower burners with some Al Green action for much of the album, and the band rolls out the brass/organ Stax sound to go along with the drums and guitars.  Robust and authentic, I enjoy all of it immensely.

Before I get to the most popular tracks, I've got to show you the one that first caught my ear on my listens of the one album (2014's Half the City), called "Sugar Dyed."  Here is a live version dripping with sweat and action:

This gives me the feel of one of the unhinged moments on the Alabama Shakes new album, and I dig it.  The most listened-to track from their album is not that one, it is "Call Me," which slows things down and grooves a little.

5.8 million streams.  Smooth and groovy.  That's that Al Green sound right there, with a couple James Brown-ish "I need!" and "ha! gottu!" exclamations in there.  Then, it looks like a new album is coming out soon (you can pre-order!) and the intro single from that one is called "All I Ever Wonder," and is up to 277k streams right now on Spotify.

Damn that is smooth too.  And then the choir comes in for the chorus, which I think speaks to the Presidential election this year for the majority of people I know.  "I can't tell which side I'm on, I can't tell whats right or wrong, we ain't ever gonna sing one song, love goes hate goes now I'm left all alone."  Sounds about right.  Cool band, I like the old album, and it sounds like I'll have more listening to do when the new one is released.  I'd expect that I'd go see them at the Festival.